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Moral Affirmations and Social Concerns in Elizabeth Bishop's

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Moral Affirmations and Social Concerns in Elizabeth Bishop's ISSN 2349-7831 International Journal of Recent Research in Social Sciences and Humanities (IJRRSSH) Vol. 2, Issue 1, pp: (1-9), Month: January - March 2015, Available at: www.paperpublications.org Moral Affirmations and Social Concerns in Elizabeth Bishop’s Poems Sulekha Sharma Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar Marathwada University, Aurangabad, India. Abstract: This paper is an attempt to unleash Elizabeth Bishop’s affirmative ideology analysing few of her poems reflecting her concerns for issues of war, weaker sections of the society and concerns on the class divide in the society. Bishop’s moral affirmations impart a ray of hope in the disappointing hopeless situations, arising due to political and economical unrest in twentieth century America, as an effect of various conflicts and wars in the period. Her moral affirmations or beliefs give a strong optimistic ideology to her poems. Though her moral affirmations and her social concerns are reflective of a very basic and simple way of thinking but was a required ideology for the war afflicted society on the verge of forgetting the simple and peaceful living. Reluctant to make grand moral claims in her writing, Bishop’s poems remain consistently attuned to the crucial role in the on- going social reformation for the development of self and polis. Keywords: class divide; Elizabeth Bishop; moral affirmations; social concerns; war afflicted; weaker sections. I. INTRODUCTION Elizabeth Bishop was a reticent writer of America in the twentieth-century. She has 110 poems to her credit, though a very modest number of literary outputs as compared to the stalwarts of literature, still her poems are worth exploring and unleashing the treasure of interpretations and meanings they offer. Though a less critically explored writer, Bishop‘s poetry offers a rich variety of interpretations and that is Bishop‘s achievement as a creator. Bishop is known to be a keen observer and writer of realistic details, which of course she is, but her poetry offers much more than just descriptions. Jonathan Ausubel, in his essay, assumes on Bishop's part a commitment to writing socially activist verse or, at the very least, verse that repeatedly and intentionally exposes what he calls the "cycle of domination" from "childhood to adulthood," from "personal to societal levels".1Bishop‘s poems showcase her social concerns for the issues related to war, concerns for weaker sections of the society and concerns on the class divide in the society. Bishop handles her apprehensions with positive moral affirmations or beliefs towards the afflicted and thus gives rise to an optimistic ideology in her poems. Her poems thus seem to have compassion for the afflicted and give a ray of hope in the most distressful moments. Richard Wilbur‘s insight in this regard is an accurate one: ―her poems, for all their objectivity, are much involved in what they see: though she seldom protests, or specifies her emotions, her work is full of an implicit compassion.‖2 Bishop‘s concerns are not restricted to the human beings, but are also extended to the immediate environment and the inhabitants of it that are affected by the oddities of inhuman acts. Bishop‘s involvement is simultaneously an emotional and an intellectual investment, an attempt to project her sympathies to the immediate surroundings of which she is a part. In other words, the poems insistently recognize the fact that ―shared human interaction is a deeply satisfying experience‖ – a conviction which is important and amenable for the healthy society.3 II. MORAL AFFIRMATIONS AND SOCIAL CONCERNS In America, the twentieth-century was marked by many losses, categorized by the Great Depression, two World Wars, as well as a rapidly changing society. No poet displays this sense of loss quite so empathetically or eloquently as Bishop did in her poems. In the poem, ―A Miracle for Breakfast‖ Bishop puts forth her view regarding existences. In her 1966 interview with Ashley Brown, Bishop stated that: ―Oh, that‘s my Depression poem. It was written shortly after the time Page | 1 Paper Publications ISSN 2349-7831 International Journal of Recent Research in Social Sciences and Humanities (IJRRSSH) Vol. 2, Issue 1, pp: (1-9), Month: January - March 2015, Available at: www.paperpublications.org of souplines and men selling apples, around 1936 or so. It was my ―social conscious‖ poem, a poem about hunger.‖4 The poem comes as a remedy for the society which was struggling to evolve from the desolations of war. It can also be also taken as a parable, as a modern version of Christ feeding of the ten thousand; or of the variation of the ceremony of the Eucharist. The Christian implications to the poem itself imply the moral lesson in the poem: ―At six o‘clock we were waiting for coffee, waiting for coffee and the charitable crumb‖5 Bishop talks about small happiness and charities which may look small, but ultimately gives the utmost satisfaction in life; and which were the necessary small steps needed to be taken to control the after effects of the war afflicted society. Bishop‘s poems are not laden with spiritual theologies; on the contrary there may be moral affirmations imparting positivity to the poem. Although, she is less interested in philosophy than Stevens, she tends to be a better philosopher with her simple and uncomplicated ideologies6. Bishop might not establish philosophies through her poems, but she definitely records more accurately, perhaps, the effect of philosophical ideas upon the human emotions. In the midst of the contemporary social and political chaos, the simple ideology reflected through Bishop‘s poems, invested in the power of resonance to different metaphorical images is commendable. The coffee and the crumb are the homely images making a parody of the ―high thinking‖ behind the moral. The social scenario in the twentieth century was overshadowed by the repercussion of war where simplicity of thought was the only consolation for the soul, which is very much exhibited in poems like this. Bishop‘s poem presents with interpretations which are simplifications but they have life and meaning as perhaps the true world never has. In the poem, ―Roosters‖ Bishop challenges the commotion of the roosters with the images of the Battle of Britain in 1940-41. Bishop sarcastically refers to the airplanes fight in the sky as cockfights. Bishop uses war imagery, but she also suggests a response, although not an easy one. ―his dreadful rooster come to mean forgiveness,‖5 She advocates forgiveness as the essential savers of the human soul in the poem, reflecting her humanitarian concerns and wellbeing of mankind. Bishop dismisses the ideology of – tit for tat, war for war – and on the contrary advocates forgiveness for the betterment and progress of the society. According to Bishop, war cannot be the answer for war, but only forgiveness can be. Paradoxically Bishop presents the same bird, the ―rooster,‖ as the symbol of both wars as well as of forgiveness. Even after forgiveness, the narrator cannot undo the senseless killing that had cost the rooster and the war victims their life. Other than forgiveness, what can save the society from destruction is repentance. By referring to the Greek culture in the second part of the poem, Bishop asserts an element of hope in the poem. Peter‘s tears are symbolic of his repenting. Repentance and forgiveness are the high ideals Bishop sets for the war afflicted society which is on the breach of further breakdown due to ill practices and internal fights. Bishop is deeply concerned with the issues of peaceful human co-existence, but reticent as she was her concerns are also implied at times allowing the readers to interpret them and unfold the hidden truth underneath. In her poem ―Paris, 7 A.M.,‖ Bishop symbolically presents clock as an indicator of time past and time present. The time past is historical which has a contradiction or dilemma in itself giving rise to repetition of history. And the people who have witnessed the history of bloodsheds and wars still put an ignorant face, and this is the irony of the situation, Bishop refers to, in this poem. David Kalstone, Bishop‘s best critic, saw how ―the clock faces of the opening lines merges into the map of the Paris, the Etoile with dispersing circles.‖7 Bishop through this poem questions the perpetrators of wars who make massive preparations in the form of piling up of ―the ammunitions ‖: ―Where is the ammunition, the piled-up balls with the star-splintered hearts of ice?‖5 In the poem, Bishop refers to the triumphal arch, a memorable place in the heart of Paris at Place de l‘Etoile. This arch celebrates the military victories from Napolean‘s time onward. Samuel Hynes, in his excellent book on literature and politics noted that if the decade is plotted as a tragedy, the peripatetic would be year 1936 : ―In that year, Hitler reoccupied the Rhineland and the Treaty of Versailles was finished, Abyssinia surrendered and the League of Nations had failed, the Rome-Berlin Axis was formed and the German-Japanese pact was signed. And, most emotional and Page | 2 Paper Publications ISSN 2349-7831 International Journal of Recent Research in Social Sciences and Humanities (IJRRSSH) Vol. 2, Issue 1, pp: (1-9), Month: January - March 2015, Available at: www.paperpublications.org implicating of all the year‘s events, the Civil War in Spain began.‖8 Bishop in this poem evokes the memories of the soldiers whose lives are commemorated in the form of memorials in Paris. ―This sky is no carrier-warrior-pigeon escaping endless intersecting circles. It is a dead one, or the sky from which a dead one fell.‖5 The ―pigeon‖ is a reference to the world wars where they were used as warriors.
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